Abstract
This paper presents a compact down-conversion oscillator mixer fabricated with a 0.18-μm CMOS technology. The oscillator mixer consists of a conventional nMOS differential coupled oscillator, a switch stage, and a pMOS cross-coupled pair which is used to release the design constraint between the conversion gain and the start-up condition. Since the switch stage and the pMOS cross-coupled pair are stacked on the nMOS differential oscillator, the bias currents of the switch stage and the pMOS cross-coupled pair can be entirely reused, so as to reduce the power dissipation. The experimental results show a conversion gain of 6.5 dB at 2.1 GHz associated with a single-sideband (SSB) noise figure of below 13 dB. The oscillator mixer also exhibits a tuning range of 184 MHz and a phase noise of −116 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset from the LO frequency of 6.8 GHz, and it consumes 11 mA from 1.8 V bias voltage.
Highlights
Low power and highly integrated circuits (ICs) are key issues for developing components or modules of wireless communications systems
The power consumption of the switching pair is about 3.13 mW and a higher power of 17 mW is consumed by the VCO core to obtain the request amplitude level for achieving the high conversion gain and low phase noise
The oscillator mixer mainly constructed with an nMOS-only VCO and a switch stage
Summary
Low power and highly integrated circuits (ICs) are key issues for developing components or modules of wireless communications systems. The oscillator mixer employs inductive peaking, level shift, and extra speed-up current sources to improve start-up condition and fasten speed of VCO core; these additional circuits make the design more complicated and increase parasitic capacitances which will reduce VCO’s tuning range. Another double-balanced oscillator mixer constructed with a 0.18-μm CMOS technology has been reported to exhibit good performance and a compact configuration [3]. By using an additional pMOS cross-coupled pair to separate their bias currents and to compensate the loss of the LC-tank, it still preserves the characteristics of the low phase noise and the high conversion gain
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